Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2008
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
For Kitty, growing up at Hay House among bluebell woods and doting relations is heaven. But for her mother, the restless Marina, a bohemian beauty who paints and weeps with alacrity, this comfortable domesticity cannot provide the novelty and excitement she craves. Marina is utterly beguiling, but more often than not Kitty can only gaze on her antics with awe and toe-curling trepidation.
When Swami-ji, Marina's guru, sees Marina's future in New York, the family relocates, leaving Kitty exiled in a colorless boarding school. Reprieve comes in the form of the guru's summons to the ashram; but then, just as Kitty is approaching enlightenment, she and Marina are off again, leaving for an England that is now fast and unfamiliar. This time no god, man, or martini can staunch Marina's hunger for a happiness that proves all too elusive. And Kitty, turning fifteen, must choose: whether to play dangerous games with the grown-ups or begin to put herself first.
"There's plenty of texture to Kitty's remembrances, but the result reads more like a fictional memoir than fully plotted novel." - Publishers Weekly.
"The eccentric coming-of-age story is hardly a new one, and this particular entry lacks the depth and texture that might have made it compelling. Cloying and weightless." - Kirkus Reviews.
"“A poetic love story…part Love in a Cold Climate, part Edith Sitwell and part any one of her grandfather Roald Dahl’s books." - Vogue.
This information about Playing With the Grown-ups was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sophie Dahl was born in London in 1977 and began modelling in 1996 after being discovered by fashion maverick Isabella Blow. In 2003, her best-selling novella, The Man With The Dancing Eyes was published, followed by novel Playing With the Grown Ups in 2008, and finally her cookery book Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights. Dahl was the star of her own cooking series in March 2010 aired on BBC2, The Delicious Miss Dahl. Dahl has been published in American Vogue, the Guardian, the Telegraph Magazine, the Saturday Times, The Observer and The Spectator and is now a regular contributor to British Vogue. Dahl lives in England with her husband, jazz musician Jamie Cullum after an eight year sojourn in New York.
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